Hamersley, Western Australia
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Hamersley is a residential
suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...
north-northwest of the
central business district A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...
of
Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
, the capital of
Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
, and six kilometres (4 mi) from the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...
. The suburb adjoins two major arterial roads—
Mitchell Freeway The Mitchell Freeway is a controlled-access highway, freeway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, linking Perth (suburb), central Perth with the city of Joondalup. It is the northern section of List of road routes in Western ...
to the west and
Reid Highway Reid Highway is a east-west highway and partial freeway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, linking North Beach with Middle Swan. As part of State Route 3, it forms half of Perth's outer ring road along with Roe Highway, w ...
to the south—and is within the
City of Stirling The City of Stirling is a local government area in the northern suburbs of the Western Australian capital city of Perth about north of Perth's central business district. The City covers an area of and has a population of over 223,000, making ...
local government area. It was built during the late 1960s and 1970s as part of the
Government of Western Australia The Government of Western Australia is the States and territories of Australia, Australian state democratic administrative authority of Western Australia. It is also commonly referred to as the WA Government or the Western Australian Governmen ...
's response to rapidly increasing land prices across the metropolitan area. Before development, Hamersley was a remote district covered in
jarrah ''Eucalyptus marginata'', commonly known as jarrah, in Noongar language and historically as Swan River mahogany, is a plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a tree with rough, fibro ...
, marri,
banksia ''Banksia'' is a genus of around 170 species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes, and woody fruiting "cones" and head ...
and other vegetation typical of the
Swan Coastal Plain The Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia is the geographic feature which contains the Swan River as it travels west to the Indian Ocean. The coastal plain continues well beyond the boundaries of the Swan River and its tributaries, as a geol ...
, with small areas cleared for
small-scale agriculture A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technolo ...
such as
market gardening A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under to s ...
and
poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of harvesting animal products such as meat, Eggs as food, eggs or feathers. The practice of animal husbandry, raising poultry is known as poultry farming. These birds are most typ ...
farming. By 1974, six years after the first subdivision, Hamersley was home to the district's first community hall, an annual parade and fair which were broadcast on Perth TV and radio, an active progress association, and its own newspaper, the ''Hamersley Gazette'', a forerunner to today's ''Stirling Times''. Rapid growth further north removed the focus from Hamersley, which was completed in 1981 and has remained relatively stable since then. Significant reserves of remnant
bushland In Australia, bushland is a blanket term for land which supports remnant natural area, remnant vegetation or land which is disturbed but still retains a predominance of the original floristics and structure. Human survival in bushland has a wh ...
remain in parts of the suburb. The largest of these is an exclusion zone around the
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...
radio tower in the suburb's southeast, which broadcasts AM stations to the Perth metropolitan area. The
guyed tower A guyed mast is a tall thin vertical structure that depends on guy lines (diagonal tensioned cables attached to the ground or a base) for stability. The mast itself has the compressive strength to support its own weight, but does not have the s ...
was built in 1939 and is a landmark in the region, although it has been a local political issue since the 1980s.


Geography

Hamersley is in the northern suburbs of
Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
, Western Australia, within the
City of Stirling The City of Stirling is a local government area in the northern suburbs of the Western Australian capital city of Perth about north of Perth's central business district. The City covers an area of and has a population of over 223,000, making ...
, and from the Indian Ocean. Its borders are the
Mitchell Freeway The Mitchell Freeway is a controlled-access highway, freeway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, linking Perth (suburb), central Perth with the city of Joondalup. It is the northern section of List of road routes in Western ...
to the west,
Reid Highway Reid Highway is a east-west highway and partial freeway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, linking North Beach with Middle Swan. As part of State Route 3, it forms half of Perth's outer ring road along with Roe Highway, w ...
and the Balcatta industrial area to the south,
Wanneroo Road Wanneroo Road is a arterial highway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia linking Joondanna and Yokine in the south with Wanneroo and Yanchep in the north. As part of State Route 60, it begins from Charles Street in the inner ...
to the east, and Beach Road and the
City of Joondalup The City of Joondalup is a Local government areas of Western Australia, local government area in Perth, Western Australia. Its central business district is located in the suburb Joondalup, and it includes the town centres of Hillarys, Western A ...
to the north. The suburb is divided into western and eastern portions by
Erindale Road Erindale Road is a connector road in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, providing residents of the suburbs of Hamersley and Warwick with a connection to Reid Highway and Mitchell Freeway. The road is a dual carriageway with two ...
. Hamersley was one of the first Perth suburbs to be guided by the principles of
cul-de-sac A dead end, also known as a ''cul-de-sac'' (; , ), a no-through road or a no-exit road, is a street with only one combined inlet and outlet. Dead ends are added to roads in urban planning designs to limit traffic in residential areas. Some d ...
design. Hamersley covers and averages
above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...
, although portions of the loop formed by Rannoch Circle in the eastern portion are above sea level. A real estate magazine remarked in 1994 that "homes around the Rannoch circle enjoy some spectacular views to the city and the hills", and that "a few lucky householders... could even catch ocean glimpses, despite being more than six kilometres from the water." The restricted-access bushland reserve surrounding the
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...
radio tower in the suburb's southeast covers 14.4% () of its area, while parks and areas of natural bushland are spread throughout. The largest of these are Aintree-Eglinton Reserve, a grassed reserve next to the community centre complex, and Rannoch-Tay-Earn Reserve, a reserve containing large areas of native bushland interspersed with grassed and paved walkways. A biodiversity site north of the community centre is recognised by the City of Stirling's Green Plan 2. Streets in western Hamersley are generally named after English towns, while eastern Hamersley uses the names of Scottish
Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally, ''upland'' refers to a range of hills, typically from up to , while ''highland'' is usually reserved for range ...
and
Perthshire Perthshire (Scottish English, locally: ; ), officially the County of Perth, is a Shires of Scotland, historic county and registration county in central Scotland. Geographically it extends from Strathmore, Angus and Perth & Kinross, Strathmore ...
towns and
loch ''Loch'' ( ) is a word meaning "lake" or "inlet, sea inlet" in Scottish Gaelic, Scottish and Irish Gaelic, subsequently borrowed into English. In Irish contexts, it often appears in the anglicized form "lough". A small loch is sometimes calle ...
s. There are exceptions – the origins of Vickers Street precinct street names are unknown, while streets in the south-western corner are named after the "
Bentley Boys The Bentley Boys were a group of wealthy British motorists who drove Bentley sports cars to victory in the 1920s and kept the marque's reputation for high performance alive. In 1925, as the marque floundered, Bentley Boy Woolf Barnato bought th ...
", a group of British racing drivers from the 1920s and 1930s, and their car designer Walter Owen Bentley.


Natural history

Hamersley's soil is an infertile yellow-brown sand composed of fine to coarse
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...
grains, with
Tamala Limestone Tamala Limestone is the geological name given to the widely occurring eolianite limestone deposits on the western coastline of Western Australia, between Shark Bay in the north and nearly to Albany, Western Australia, Albany in the south. The ...
beneath. Locally known as Karrakatta Sand, it is almost certainly the leached remnants of coastal sand deposited by
eolian processes Aeolian processes, also spelled eolian, pertain to wind activity in the study of geology and weather and specifically to the wind's ability to shape the surface of the Earth (or other planets). Winds may erode, transport, and deposit material ...
in the late
Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...
period, between 11,000 and 100,000 years ago. Below the sand are
Paleozoic The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three Era (geology), geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma a ...
rocks of the
Perth Basin The Perth Basin is a thick, elongated sedimentary basin in Western Australia. It lies beneath the Swan Coastal Plain west of the Darling Scarp, representing the western limit of the much older Yilgarn craton, and extends further west offshore. ...
. The sand contains an unconfined
aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing material, consisting of permeability (Earth sciences), permeable or fractured rock, or of unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Aquifers vary greatly in their characteristics. The s ...
with large supplies of low-salinity potable
groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...
which is recharged by rainfall. As with other infertile areas of the
Swan Coastal Plain The Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia is the geographic feature which contains the Swan River as it travels west to the Indian Ocean. The coastal plain continues well beyond the boundaries of the Swan River and its tributaries, as a geol ...
, Hamersley would have supported open forests of ''
Eucalyptus marginata ''Eucalyptus marginata'', commonly known as jarrah, in Noongar language and historically as Swan River mahogany, is a plant in the Myrtus, myrtle Family (biology), family, Myrtaceae and is endemism, endemic to the Southwest Australia, south-we ...
'' (jarrah) with ''
Corymbia calophylla ''Corymbia calophylla'', commonly known as marri, is a species of flowering plant in the family Myrtaceae and is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It is a tree or Mallee (habit), mallee with rough bark on part or all of the trunk, ...
'' (marri) or ''
Eucalyptus gomphocephala ''Eucalyptus gomphocephala'', known as tuart, is a species of tree and is one of the six forest giants of Southwest Australia. The trees usually grow to a height of and mostly have a single stem, but can have multiple stems under some condit ...
'' (tuart), and an understorey of ''
Banksia attenuata ''Banksia attenuata'', commonly known as the candlestick banksia, slender banksia, or biara to the Noongar people, is a species of plant in the family Proteaceae. Commonly a tree, it reaches high, but it is often a shrub in drier areas high. ...
'' (candlestick banksia), '' B. menziesii'' (firewood banksia), '' B. grandis'' (bull banksia), ''
Allocasuarina fraseriana ''Allocasuarina fraseriana'', commonly known as western sheoak, or Fraser's sheoak is a species of flowering plant in the family Casuarinaceae, and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. The Noongar peoples know the tree as kondil,con ...
'' (western sheoak) and ''
Agonis flexuosa ''Agonis flexuosa'', commonly known as peppermint, is a species of flowering plant in the family Myrtaceae and is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. The Noongar peoples know the tree as wanil, wonnow, wonong or wannang. It is a t ...
'' (Swan River peppermint). The main shrub species would have been '' Jacksonia sternbergiana'' (Stinkwood), '' J. furcellata'' (Grey Stinkwood), ''
Acacia cyclops ''Acacia cyclops'', commonly known as coastal wattle, cyclops wattle, one-eyed wattle, red-eyed wattle, redwreath acacia, western coastal wattle, rooikrans, rooikrans acacia, is a coastal shrub or small tree in the family Fabaceae. Native to A ...
'' (Coastal Wattle), ''
Acacia saligna ''Acacia saligna'', commonly known by various names including coojong, golden wreath wattle, willow wattle, orange wattle, blue-leafed wattle, Western Australian golden wattle, and, in Africa, Port Jackson willow, is a small tree in the family ...
'' (orange wattle), ''
Hibbertia ''Hibbertia'', commonly known as guinea flowers, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Dilleniaceae. They are usually shrubs with simple leaves and usually yellow flowers with five sepals and five petals. There are about 400 species, mo ...
'' species, '' Allocasuarina humilis'' (dwarf sheoak), ''
Calothamnus quadrifidus ''Calothamnus quadrifidus'', commonly known as one-sided bottlebrush, is a plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. The common name alludes to the arrangement of the flowers in the infloresce ...
'' (one-sided bottlebrush) and ''
Grevillea thelemanniana ''Grevillea thelemanniana'', commonly known as spider net grevillea, is species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to Perth, Western Australia. It is a spreading shrub with linear and Pinnation#Depth of divisions, pinnat ...
'' (spider net grevillea). Biodiversity surveys in 2006 have also identified a relatively rare species, '' Jacksonia sericea'' (waldjumi), in two eastern Hamersley reserves.


History


Name

Hamersley was named after the
Hamersley family The Hamersley family were a wealthy and well-connected family of early settlers in the colony of Western Australia. Members of the Hamersley family emigrated to Western Australia from England in 1837. Prominent members and connections of the fa ...
who arrived in the
colony of Western Australia The human history of Western Australia commenced "over 50,000 years ago and possibly as much as 70,000 years ago" with the arrival of Aboriginal Australians on the northwest coast. The first inhabitants expanded across the east and south of the ...
in 1837 and established themselves at
Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, England, around south-west of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The nam ...
. There is no evidence they ever visited modern Hamersley, but in 1869 they built a summer home in what is now North Beach, to the west, and bought considerable holdings in the area over the following years. The name first came into use to describe the north-western section of the Perth Road District in 1906. Hamersley Ward was a large area of land covering what is now Hamersley,
Carine CARINE (Computer Aided Reasoning Engine) is a first-order classical logic automated theorem prover. It was initially built for the study of the enhancement effects of the strategies delayed clause-construction (DCC) and attribute sequences (ATS) ...
, Watermans Bay, North Beach, Gwelup and parts of Balcatta, Karrinyup and Trigg. The Hamersley townsite, consisting of Hamersley Ward, was gazetted in 1945. As a result, many facilities in North Beach, including a primary school, a golf course, several sporting clubs and residents' and seniors' associations, were called Hamersley. After the Hamersley Development Scheme started in 1968, confusion as to exactly what Hamersley referred to led to conflict between established organisations in North Beach and emerging ones in Hamersley – the ''Hamersley Gazette'' noted in 1973 that "North Beach people have the prior claim but ours is more officially accepted". The suburb was gazetted as a locality by the City of Stirling on 24 October 1975, although it had existed as a postal locality since 1971.


Early history

Before European settlement, Hamersley was part of a larger area of land that was occupied by the
Mooro The Mooro are a Nyungar Aboriginal clan, a subgroup of the Whadjuk. Their territory stretches from the Swan River in Perth north to the Moore River beyond the northern limits of metropolitan Perth and east to Ellen Brook. Evidence of Aborig ...
people, an
Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...
people who traversed the lakes and wetlands running parallel to the coast between what is now Perth and
Yanchep Yanchep is a coastal town north of Perth, Western Australia, north of the Perth CBD. It is a part of the City of Wanneroo local government area. Originally a small crayfishing settlement, it was developed by entrepreneur Alan Bond in the 19 ...
. Soon after the establishment of the
Swan River Colony The Swan River Colony, also known as the Swan River Settlement, or just ''Swan River'', was a British colony established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. This initial settlement place on the Swan River was soon named Perth, an ...
, colonial authorities divided up the land into grants which were given to settlers who had brought capital into the new settlement. Southern Hamersley became part of Location K, a strip of land extending west from Caversham on the Swan River to Big Carine Swamp, which was granted to Robert Ansell Partridge in September 1829. The western part of this, first surveyed by P.L.S. Chauncy in 1843, remained fairly inaccessible, and the only development in the area was the construction of the Daviot Park cottage on Old Balcatta Road southwest of Hamersley. By the late 1930s, portions in the far west and south-east of the suburb had been cleared for small-scale agriculture such as market gardening, and in 1939 the Department of the Interior constructed a tower and other facilities for ABC AM and
shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (app ...
radio broadcasts on
Wanneroo Road Wanneroo Road is a arterial highway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia linking Joondanna and Yokine in the south with Wanneroo and Yanchep in the north. As part of State Route 60, it begins from Charles Street in the inner ...
. Northern Hamersley, meanwhile, became part of
Swan Swans are birds of the genus ''Cygnus'' within the family Anatidae. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe (biology) ...
Location 1315, which extended north to Lake Goollelal and west to the coast and was granted in the 1890s to the Midland Railway Company after being surveyed by Crossland & Co. in 1892, and by N. Lymburner in 1894.Lymburner, N. (16 April 1894). ''Fieldbook 10'', pp. 10–24. Accessed on microfilm at State Records Office, Perth.
* Crossland & Co. (1892). ''Loc. 1315 Western Survey for Midland Railway Co.'' Later additions to 1900. Scale: 20 chains to 1 inch; approx. 1:16,000. Located at State Records Office, Perth, under "Swan 172"
* Bartlett, N.S. (1903). ''Loc 1315 – Vicinity of Marmion Townsite and Wanneroo Road (Compiled from various surveys 1841–1907)''. Scale: 15 chains to 1 inch; approx. 1:12,000. Accessed at State Records Office, Perth, under "Swan 270".
It appears that no development occurred in northern Hamersley, other than the construction of Beach and Carine Roads in 1900, and the State Housing Commission resumed the land in November 1950. In 1962, a
lucerne Lucerne ( ) or Luzern ()Other languages: ; ; ; . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking portion of the country. Lucerne is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the Lucerne (district), di ...
grower with a property on Duffy Road, Carine applied to use the northern half of the suburb as a sheep run. The Shire President, Herbert R. Robinson, refused to grant permission, saying that "land might soon be needed for housing". ''
The West Australian ''The West Australian'' is the only locally edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia. It is owned by Seven West Media (SWM), as is the state's other major newspaper, ''The Sunday Times''. It is the second-oldest continuousl ...
'' reported in 1967 that the area was still "virtually untouched bushland".


Hamersley Development Scheme

In the late 1960s, concern about the growth of land prices in the Perth metropolitan area, which for several years had exceeded the
consumer price index A consumer price index (CPI) is a statistical estimate of the level of prices of goods and services bought for consumption purposes by households. It is calculated as the weighted average price of a market basket of Goods, consumer goods and ...
, led to the
premier of Western Australia The premier of Western Australia is the head of government of the state of Western Australia. The role of premier at a state level is similar to the role of the prime minister of Australia at a federal level. The premier leads the executive br ...
,
David Brand Sir David Brand Order of St Michael and St George, KCMG (1 August 1912 – 15 April 1979) was an Australian politician. He was the longest-serving premier of Western Australia, in office from 1959 to 1971, and was state leader of the Liberal Pa ...
, convening an inter-departmental committee to study the problem. One of the committee's recommendations to Cabinet was to release of land owned by the State Housing Commission in Hamersley, Warwick and Greenwood which was on a much larger area that had been designated as "deferred urban" land under the
Metropolitan Region Scheme The Metropolitan Region Scheme (MRS) provides the legal basis for land use planning within the Perth metropolitan region. It classifies land into broad zones and reservations and is administered by the Western Australian Planning Commission (WAP ...
in 1963.Carr, Dr. David. "Hamersley – Rezoning from Urban Deferred to Urban (Report No. Hous/55)", ''Minutes of the Metropolitan Region Planning Authority'' (July–December 1967), 14 November 1967. Accessed at State Records Office, Perth. On 13 December 1967, the Metropolitan Region Planning Authority decided to rezone as urban all land bounded by
Hepburn Avenue Hepburn Avenue is an arterial east–west road in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia. The road links Sorrento in the west with Malaga and Whiteman in the east. It also connects the residential developments that span its length w ...
,
Marmion Avenue Marmion Avenue is a arterial road in the northern coastal suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, linking Trigg, Western Australia, Trigg in the south with Yanchep in the north. It forms part of List of road routes in Perth, Western Australia#71, ...
, North Perimeter Highway and
Wanneroo Road Wanneroo Road is a arterial highway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia linking Joondanna and Yokine in the south with Wanneroo and Yanchep in the north. As part of State Route 60, it begins from Charles Street in the inner ...
, on the condition that
subdivision Subdivision may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Subdivision (metre), in music * ''Subdivision'' (film), 2009 * "Subdivision", an episode of ''Prison Break'' (season 2) * ''Subdivisions'' (EP), by Sinch, 2005 * "Subdivisions" (song), by Rush ...
would be approved when "Town Planning (Development) Scheme(s) have been approved with the general object of serving the best possible development at the least cost to the community"."Government To Free 1,000 Acres for Houses near City", ''
The West Australian ''The West Australian'' is the only locally edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia. It is owned by Seven West Media (SWM), as is the state's other major newspaper, ''The Sunday Times''. It is the second-oldest continuousl ...
'', 14 December 1967, p. 2.
The shires of Perth and Wanneroo combined to prepare Town Planning Scheme No.26 ( Hamersley Development Scheme), and by early March 1968, the scheme, which included provisions for
water supply Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavors or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. Public water supply systems are crucial to properly functioning societies. Th ...
,
sewerage Sewerage (or sewage system) is the infrastructure that conveys sewage or surface runoff ( stormwater, meltwater, rainwater) using sewers. It encompasses components such as receiving drains, manholes, pumping stations, storm overflows, and scr ...
, drainage, road construction and
undergrounding An underground power line provides electrical power with underground cables. Compared to overhead power lines, underground lines have lower risk of starting a wildfire and reduce the risk of the electrical supply being interrupted by outages ...
of power mains, was presented to both councils for consideration. A time limit of years for developers to construct homes on released land was built into the scheme in an effort to prevent land
speculation In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, good (economics), goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable in a brief amount of time. It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hope ...
, which the inter-departmental committee believed was a key factor in spiralling prices in Perth.Western Australia – Committee on the Taxation of Unimproved Land and on Land Prices (January 1968). ''Report – Land taxation and land prices in Western Australia. Part I'' (Report to Premier
Brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...
). Chapters 3, 4 and 5.
By July, however, negotiations between the councils broke down, and the Shire of Perth (now
City of Stirling The City of Stirling is a local government area in the northern suburbs of the Western Australian capital city of Perth about north of Perth's central business district. The City covers an area of and has a population of over 223,000, making ...
) decided to administer its own part of the scheme independently. The scheme was divided into nine sections, with what is now the suburb of Hamersley being the first stage. In April 1968 the R&I Bank, a government-owned bank, was granted permission to subdivide a small area in northern Ardleigh Crescent in the suburb's west. The first auction of 80 lots on Saturday, 14 December 1968 was anticipated on the front page of ''The West Australian'', with Premier Brand advising intending buyers to be cautious about their bids. At the auction, 76 lots were sold at an average price of $4,784, compared to $6,700 at a recent R&I Bank sale in the nearby suburb of Karrinyup, with newspapers agreeing that the Premier's warning had been heeded by bidders. The western portion of Hamersley grew steadily over the following months and years, with segments being released, auctioned and developed by the R&I Bank, T&S Plunkett Homes and Parkland Housing. The Hamersley Development Scheme, however, was doomed almost before it started. Disagreements over issues such as undergrounding of power and the time limit clauses between the Town Planning Board and the Shire of Perth had caused delays in the scheme's approval. In July 1970, the Shire Planner reported that "there is little point in proceeding with the Scheme, especially in view of the large areas already subdivided", and recommended the council agree "that for all practical purposes, Town Planning Scheme No. 26. is defunct". By the February 1971 state election, over 1,000 eligible voters lived in the district.


Suburban development

In June 1970, the Metropolitan Region Planning Authority released land in the southwestern corner of Hamersley, which had previously been held in reserve under the Metropolitan Region Scheme for a large freeway interchange between the future
Mitchell Freeway The Mitchell Freeway is a controlled-access highway, freeway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, linking Perth (suburb), central Perth with the city of Joondalup. It is the northern section of List of road routes in Western ...
(then known as Stephenson Freeway) and
Reid Highway Reid Highway is a east-west highway and partial freeway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, linking North Beach with Middle Swan. As part of State Route 3, it forms half of Perth's outer ring road along with Roe Highway, w ...
(North Perimeter Freeway). The result of these changes was to allow the construction of Walter Way, Dutton Crescent and connecting streets, which were named after racing drivers from the 1920s and 1930s. Between 1971 and 1973, reserves, public recreation areas and drainage sites were set aside in western Hamersley, and facilities were erected in quick succession – the 1st Hamersley
Scout Group A Scout group is a local organization used in some Scout organizations that groups a Scout troop or unit with other age programs, separate gender-based Scout troops and/or multiple Scout troops. A Scout group that groups Scouts with programs fo ...
in 1973, the colonial-style Holy Cross
Anglican Church Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
in 1974, and a community hall at Aintree Street in 1975. Residents in the region were at this time on the fringe of Perth's suburban area, relying on partly built main roads, distant shopping centres and overstretched local facilities for several years after the suburb's construction. A locally produced fortnightly newspaper, the ''Hamersley Gazette'', started in early 1973 by Peter Flanigan, from his home in Manton Court, covering the suburbs of Carine, Hamersley, Warwick and Greenwood, with the open aim of helping to form community associations and campaign for better facilities. A July 1973 article, for example, lamented that "work on Erindale Road appears to have come to a standstill... great piles of dirt and unmade road surfaces bear testimony to the fact that something is going on, or should be going on, but this one is taking a very long time." However, there were also celebrations – the paper reported in detail on the annual Glendale Spring Fair, held between 1973 and 1976 by the Glendale P&C Association on the second Saturday in November. It included activities for children, marching bands provided by
The Salvation Army The Salvation Army (TSA) is a Protestantism, Protestant Christian church and an international charitable organisation headquartered in London, England. It is aligned with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement. The organisation reports a worldwide m ...
and the Australian 10th Light Horse Regiment, and a parade along Glendale Avenue and Beach Road at 10:30 am. Intended originally as a fundraiser for the school, the ''Gazette'' reported that it was "a sort of glorified féte that rapidly outgrew its origins", with live coverage of the parade on ABC radio and on television station TVW-7 and personalities such as Jeff Newman in attendance. The fair, however, became the victim of a dispute over naming rights between the Glendale P&C, community groups and commercial sponsors. Other events included the grand opening of Warwick Grove Shopping Centre on 13 November 1974, the greening of Aintree-Eglinton Reserve and the activities of the Hamersley Progress Association. The paper was acquired in February 1977 by Bill Marwick of the ''Wanneroo Times'', and evolved into the ''Stirling Times'' in 1980. Meanwhile, work was only starting in eastern Hamersley. In 1973 Project Homes acquired a poultry farm and agricultural holding, and completed the construction of Vickers Street and adjoining roads, with Don Place becoming a display village. In 1974 the City of Stirling agreed, after complex negotiations, to sell of land comprising Carine Road and Allen Street to the State Housing Commission and to the War Service Homes Commission in order to "facilitate a satisfactory subdivisional design of adjoining land held by the State Housing Commission" in the eastern portion of the suburb. All that remains of these two early roads are paved pathways within the Rannoch-Tay-Earn Reserve, which was gazetted in 1976. By July 1975, 200 defence service homes were under construction on land immediately to the east of Erindale Road, to be made available to veterans from March 1976. The rest of eastern Hamersley was built over the next few years, and by 1981 development was essentially complete. The community hall was redeveloped into a full-fledged community centre, which officially opened in 1990.Plaque, Hamersley Community Recreation Centre inside entrance to sports centre. Despite Hamersley's stability in the years since 1981 and its relatively low crime rate, it has periodically drawn the attention of the Perth media. In July 2000, a man bludgeoned his former girlfriend, mother-of-two Deborah Boyd, to death in a rented home in Brabant Way. He was subsequently sentenced to strict-security life imprisonment. On 23 January 2006, a large scrub fire caused the closure of Reid Highway and delays in rail line services during the afternoon
rush hour A rush hour (American English, British English) or peak hour (Australian English, Indian English) is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice e ...
.


Demographics

Hamersley had a population of 5,209 at the 2021 census. This was an increase on the 4,982 recorded at the
2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...
and
2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...
censuses, and the 4,965 recorded at the 2006 census, but a decrease on the 5,233 recorded at the 2001 census. At the 2021 census, 49.8% of residents were male and 50.2% were female. The median age was 39, above the state and national average of 38. 1.1% of residents identified as Aboriginal and/or
Torres Strait Islander Torres Strait Islanders ( ) are the Indigenous Melanesians, Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal peoples of the res ...
, below the state and national averages of 3.3% and 3.2% respectively. At the 2021 census, Hamersley had a median weekly personal income of $892. The median weekly family income was $2,227 and the median weekly household income was $1,856. These were all close to the state average. The most common occupations were professionals (27.4%), technicians and trades workers (17.6%), clerical and administrative workers (13.2%), managers (11.0%), community and personal service workers (10.8%), labourers (7.1%), sales workers (7.0%), and machinery operators and drivers (4.6%). Major industries that residents worked in included hospitals (except psychiatric hospitals) (5.3%), primary education (3.3%), secondary education (2.4%), supermarket and grocery stores (2.2%), and state government administration (2.1%). Out of Hamersley's 1,981 dwellings, 94.6% were occupied and 5.2% were unoccupied as of the 2021 census. Out of the 1,981 occupied dwellings, 90.5% were
detached house A single-family detached home, also called a single-detached dwelling, single-family residence (SFR) or separate house is a free-standing residential building. It is defined in opposition to a multi-family residential dwelling. Definitions ...
s, 9.1% were semi-detached, and 0.3% were considered flats or apartments. 48.9% of the occupied dwellings had four or more bedrooms and the average number of bedrooms was 3.5%, slightly above the state average of 3.3%. The average number of people per household was 2.6%, close to the state and national average of 2.5%. 39.9% of occupied dwellings were owned outright, higher than the state average of 29.2%; 42.7% were owned with a mortgage, close to the state average of 40.0%; and 16.0% were rented, below the state average of 27.3%. At the 2021 census, 76.7% of Hamersley households were families, above the state average of 71.2%; 21.7% were single-person households, below the state average of 25.4%; and 1.6% were group households, below the state average of 3.4%. Of those family households, 39.8% were couples without children, 43.9% were couples with children, 15.3% were single parents with children, and 1.2% were some other type of family. These figures are all close to the state averages of 38.8%, 44.6%, 15.1% and 1.6% respectively. The most common ancestries that Hamersley residents identified with at the 2021 census were English (40.0%), Australian (34.9%), Irish (11.9%), Scottish (9.1%), and Italian (7.2%). 69.0% of residents were born in Australia. The next most common birthplaces were England (6.8%), New Zealand (3.2%), Ireland (1.5%), India (1.3%), and South Africa (1.2%). 42.1% of residents had both parents born in Australia and 37.8% had both parents born overseas. The most common religious affiliations were no religion (43.6%), Catholic (22.2%), Anglican (10.6%), not stated (3.6%), and Christian, (3.0%). Holy Cross Hamersley is located on Glendale Ave, and is an Anglican church in the evangelical tradition. All Saints Catholic Church is in neighbouring Warwick and the local Uniting Churches are in Carine and Greenwood.


Amenities and facilities

Hamersley is a residential suburb, relying on the Warwick Grove shopping centre on its northern boundary for commercial services, and is by road from
Karrinyup Shopping Centre Karrinyup Shopping Centre is a shopping centre built in 1973 in Karrinyup, Western Australia, Karrinyup, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, Perth. The centre is one of the largest shopping centres in Western Australia. History Prior to the c ...
. A light industrial area is to the south in Balcatta which includes a large
Bunnings Warehouse Bunnings Group Limited, trading as Bunnings Warehouse or Bunnings, is an Australian Hardware store, hardware and garden centre chain. The chain has been owned by Wesfarmers since 1994, and has stores in Australia and New Zealand. Bunnings was ...
on Erindale Road approximately south of Hamersley. Aintree-Eglinton Reserve, a grassed area covering , contains a
cricket pitch A cricket pitch is the rectangular central strip of a cricket field between the two wickets, where most of the action takes place. It is long (1 Chain (unit), chain) and wide. The surface is flat and is normally covered with extremely sh ...
, several practice runs and night lights for
Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...
, which are utilised by local amateur and junior clubs. Within the reserve is the Hamersley Community Recreation Centre, first built in the 1970s as a community hall"Federal Minister Opens Local Centre", ''Hamersley Gazette'', 11 April 1975, p. 1. The article notes that the Federal Minister in question was Frank Stewart, Minister for Tourism and Recreation, and the opening date was six days earlier. and opened in its present form on 22 April 1990. The centre is a small village area consisting of a central
pergola A pergola is most commonly used as an outdoor garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway, or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support crossbeams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are t ...
crossed with walking paths, flanked by four buildings: a sports hall with
basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...
courts and kiosk, an arts and crafts building, a community hall and function building hosting discos and other social events, and a purpose-built children's centre. Near the centre are the 1st Hamersley Scout Group, a child health centre and the Holy Cross Anglican Church, a colonial-style building built in 1974 and consecrated on 14 December 1980 to serve the newly formed Balcatta-Hamersley Parish. Numerous small parks are throughout all parts of Hamersley, usually joining the ends of several
cul-de-sac A dead end, also known as a ''cul-de-sac'' (; , ), a no-through road or a no-exit road, is a street with only one combined inlet and outlet. Dead ends are added to roads in urban planning designs to limit traffic in residential areas. Some d ...
s. The southeastern corner contains the
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...
50  kW radio tower which transmits ABC AM radio in Perth, including
ABC Local Radio ABC Local Radio is a network of publicly owned radio stations in Australia, operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. ABC Local Radio stations broadcast across the continent using terrestrial transmitters and satellites. Its programm ...
( 6WF),
Radio National ABC Radio National, more commonly known as Radio National or simply RN, is an Australian nationwide public service radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2. ...
and
ABC NewsRadio ABC NewsRadio, since 2017 broadcast under the ABC News brand and for a short time known as ABC News on Radio, is a 24-hour news radio service broadcast by the Australian public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). ABC ...
. Several other towers, including a 20 kW and 10 kW tower, are also at the site. Some residents argue that electromagnetic interference from the towers is adversely affecting their television and telephone reception,Radio Interference Group – Hamersley Towers
. Retrieved 16 July 2006.
with the issue taken up in Federal parliament by local MPs. An inquiry was held by ACMA in November 2010 into the situation, which found that apart from some disturbance to ABC2 signals, TV and radio signals in the area were of acceptable strength and quality.


Education

Hamersley contains two state primary schools, each of which includes facilities for pre-primary students, and a teaching resource centre. Hamersley is within the catchment area for Warwick Senior High School for students from Years 8 to 12. In 2016, the school provided for 248 primary students between Year 1 and Year 6, and 28 pre-primary students.Department of Education and Training (WA)
School Profile
. Retrieved on 27 May 2016. For East Hamersley, se

.
In the 1990s, the West Coast Resource Centre, a specialist borrowing library for teachers of kindergarten, pre-primary and primary classes, was built on the East Hamersley site by the Department of Education (now Education and Training) to serve schools in the northern suburbs.


Transport

Cars are the most common mode of transport for Hamersley residents. At the 2021 census, 69.6% of employed residents used a car to get to work, either as the driver or passenger. This figure is close to the state average of 68.8%. 8.0% of employed residents took public transport to work, slightly above the state average of 7.4%.


Public transport

At the 2011 census, the
Australian Bureau of Statistics The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is an List of Australian Government entities, Australian Government agency that collects and analyses statistics on economic, population, Natural environment, environmental, and social issues to advi ...
reported that 13.9% of Hamersley's residents used public transport to get to work. This was a sizable jump from 8.5% in the 2006 census, and was higher than the north-western metropolitan average of 13.1%. Public transport usage was highest (16.8%) in the section of Hamersley closest to the train station, and lowest (8.3%) in the Vickers Street section to the southeast, where many residents live more than 10 minutes' walk from the nearest bus stop. (Northwestern Hamersley)
(Vickers Street)
Currently, the only service in the suburb is the 387 daytime service between Warwick and
Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
via Balcatta Road, which travels along Eglinton Crescent. Eastern Hamersley does not have a direct service, other than those along Erindale and Wanneroo Roads. However, service along Wanneroo Road is very limited outside standard weekday hours. Originally, Hamersley was served by a shuttle service to Wanneroo Road, Nollamara, to connect with other routes to the Perth CBD. In September 1973, the
Metropolitan Transport Trust The Metropolitan (Perth) Passenger Transport Trust was a statutory authority of the Government of Western Australia from 1958 to 2003. From 1958 to the mid-1990s, it operated Buses in Perth, bus and ferry services within the Perth metropolitan ...
introduced the 358 and 359 services, which linked
Greenwood Green wood is unseasoned wood. Greenwood or Green wood may also refer to: People * Greenwood (surname) Settlements Australia * Greenwood, Queensland, a locality in the Toowoomba Region * Greenwood, Western Australia, a suburb of Perth ...
to Perth via Eglinton Crescent and Glendale Avenue/Aintree Street respectively, travelling along Blissett Way, then becoming limited-stops Wanneroo Road services. An after-hours service, the 369, was also introduced. In 1987, following the construction of the Warwick Transfer Station and the Mitchell Freeway, services along Glendale Avenue and through East Hamersley ceased, with two new routes – the 347 and the Freeway-bound 387 – being created to serve Eglinton Crescent. On 21 March 1993, the Joondalup line (now known as the Yanchep line) came into operation as part of the Northern Suburbs Transit System, resulting in the creation of the 449 and 457 services to replace the 387 service. The 449 operated only during the morning and evening rush-hour, while the 457 operated after-hours and at weekends. These services operated virtually unchanged until 6 November 2011, when the 347 was replaced with the present-day 387, and the 457 and weekday evening services were withdrawn. On 31 January 2016, the 449 was also withdrawn, leaving Hamersley without weekend bus services.


Bus

* 371 Warwick Station to
Galleria Bus Station Galleria bus station, formerly Morley bus station, is a Transperth bus station located next to the Galleria Shopping Centre in Morley, Western Australia. It has 17 stands and is served by 17 Transperth routes operated by Path Transit, Swan Tra ...
– serves Beach Road and
Wanneroo Road Wanneroo Road is a arterial highway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia linking Joondanna and Yokine in the south with Wanneroo and Yanchep in the north. As part of State Route 60, it begins from Charles Street in the inner ...
* 387 Warwick Station to
Perth Busport Perth Busport is an underground central bus station in Perth, Western Australia, located underneath Wellington Street. It was officially opened by then Premier of Western Australia Colin Barnett and then Minister for Transport Dean Nalder o ...
– serves Beach Road, Belvedere Road and Eglinton Crescent * 388 Warwick Station to
Perth Busport Perth Busport is an underground central bus station in Perth, Western Australia, located underneath Wellington Street. It was officially opened by then Premier of Western Australia Colin Barnett and then Minister for Transport Dean Nalder o ...
– serves Beach Road and
Wanneroo Road Wanneroo Road is a arterial highway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia linking Joondanna and Yokine in the south with Wanneroo and Yanchep in the north. As part of State Route 60, it begins from Charles Street in the inner ...
* 389
Wanneroo Wanneroo is a northern suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the City of Wanneroo. Geography As it is on the Swan Coastal Plain, the Wanneroo wetlands stretch parallel to the coastline and to the north and south of the suburb. Ed ...
to
Perth Busport Perth Busport is an underground central bus station in Perth, Western Australia, located underneath Wellington Street. It was officially opened by then Premier of Western Australia Colin Barnett and then Minister for Transport Dean Nalder o ...
– serves
Wanneroo Road Wanneroo Road is a arterial highway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia linking Joondanna and Yokine in the south with Wanneroo and Yanchep in the north. As part of State Route 60, it begins from Charles Street in the inner ...
* 427 and 428 Warwick Station to Stirling Station – serve Beach Road and
Erindale Road Erindale Road is a connector road in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, providing residents of the suburbs of Hamersley and Warwick with a connection to Reid Highway and Mitchell Freeway. The road is a dual carriageway with two ...
Bus routes serving Beach Road: * 344 Warwick Station to
Galleria Bus Station Galleria bus station, formerly Morley bus station, is a Transperth bus station located next to the Galleria Shopping Centre in Morley, Western Australia. It has 17 stands and is served by 17 Transperth routes operated by Path Transit, Swan Tra ...
* 445, 446 and 447 Warwick Station to Whitfords Station * 448 Warwick Station to Kingsway City * 449 Warwick Station to Malaga * 450 Warwick Station to Landsdale


Politics

Hamersley has consistently favoured the centre-right
Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...
at both federal and state elections throughout its history. However, in the 2001 and 2005 state elections and at the 1983 federal election, Hamersley booths recorded a majority for the centre-left
Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also known as the Labor Party or simply Labor, is the major Centre-left politics, centre-left List of political parties in Australia, political party in Australia and one of two Major party, major parties in Po ...
(ALP). Hamersley has also shown a higher preference than the regional average for progressive minor parties such as the
Australian Greens The Australian Greens, commonly referred to simply as the Greens, are a Left-wing politics, left-wing green party, green Australian List of political parties in Australia, political party. As of 2025, the Greens are the third largest politica ...
and
Australian Democrats The Australian Democrats is a centrist political party in Australia. Founded in 1977 from a merger of the Australia Party and the New Liberal Movement, both of which were descended from Liberal Party splinter groups, it was Australia's lar ...
. Hamersley is both socially and geographically between the safe Liberal suburbs west of the
Mitchell Freeway The Mitchell Freeway is a controlled-access highway, freeway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, linking Perth (suburb), central Perth with the city of Joondalup. It is the northern section of List of road routes in Western ...
such as
Carine CARINE (Computer Aided Reasoning Engine) is a first-order classical logic automated theorem prover. It was initially built for the study of the enhancement effects of the strategies delayed clause-construction (DCC) and attribute sequences (ATS) ...
, Duncraig and North Beach, and the safe Labor suburbs east of
Wanneroo Road Wanneroo Road is a arterial highway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia linking Joondanna and Yokine in the south with Wanneroo and Yanchep in the north. As part of State Route 60, it begins from Charles Street in the inner ...
such as
Balga Balga (; ; ; ) was a medieval castle of the Teutonic Knights in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. The castle ruins are located on the shore of the Vistula Lagoon, north of Mamonovo in the Pogranichny municipality of Bagrationovsky District, about so ...
and Girrawheen. At federal level, Hamersley is within the
Division of Stirling The Division of Stirling was an Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives, Australian electoral division in the inner northern and beachside suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, which included a large portion of the local government ...
, a
marginal seat A marginal seat or swing seat is a constituency held with a small majority in a legislative election, generally one conducted under a single-winner voting system. In Canada, they may be known as target ridings. The opposite is a safe seat. T ...
which historically has alternated between the Liberal Party and the Australian Labor Party. It has been held since 2004 by Michael Keenan of the Liberal Party. At polling place and subdivision level, Hamersley has supported the Liberal Party at every election since its first in 1972, the only exception being the 1983 election. In the 2001 election, the booth at East Hamersley Primary School was only won by the Liberal Party with a 0.3% two-party-preferred majority. Hamersley was in the
Division of Cowan The Division of Cowan () is an Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives, Australian Electoral Division in Western Australia. Cowan is an inner-northern Perth seat lying generally between Morley Drive and Hepburn Avenue, extending f ...
for elections held between 1984 and 1996. In the
Western Australian Legislative Assembly The Western Australian Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Western Australia, an Australian state. The Parliament sits in Parliament House, Perth, Parliament House in the Western Australian capi ...
, Hamersley is split between the electorates of Girrawheen and Balcatta, ordinarily both safe seats for the Australian Labor Party. At polling place level, Hamersley supported the Liberal Party at every election since its first in 1971 until the 1996 election. In both the 2001 and 2005 elections, polling places in Hamersley, as with those in many northern Perth suburbs, switched to the Australian Labor Party at state level. However, at the 2008 and 2013 elections, the suburb returned a majority for the Liberals. At local level, Hamersley is represented within the
City of Stirling The City of Stirling is a local government area in the northern suburbs of the Western Australian capital city of Perth about north of Perth's central business district. The City covers an area of and has a population of over 223,000, making ...
by the two councillors of the Hamersley Ward, which covers the suburbs of Carine, Hamersley, Gwelup and northern Balcatta.
City of Stirling The City of Stirling is a local government area in the northern suburbs of the Western Australian capital city of Perth about north of Perth's central business district. The City covers an area of and has a population of over 223,000, making ...

Home – Council
. Retrieved on 8 August 2012.
At present, Samantha Jenkinson, whose term expires in October 2019, and Andrew Guilfoyle, whose term expires in October 2017, represent Hamersley Ward. In the early 1970s, the Hamersley Progress Association was formed to represent the views of Hamersley residents to all levels of government. It was, however, fairly short-lived.''Hamersley Gazette'', 7 December 1973, and other editions through to 1978. Accessed at Battye Library, Perth. In 1999, the Hamersley Reference Group was formed to advise then-Federal Member for Stirling
Jann McFarlane Jann Sonya McFarlane (born 22 May 1944) is a former Australian politician. She was a member of the Australian House of Representatives, House of Representatives from 1998 to 2004, representing the Western Australian seat of Division of Stirling, ...
MHR on issues related to the ABC radio transmission towers and their effect on local residents. It was renamed to Radio Interference Group – Hamersley Towers after it moved to complete community management, and lobbies the government and makes submissions to public inquiries on behalf of the community on the issue. Polling place statistics are presented below combining the votes from the Glendale and East Hamersley polling places in the federal and state elections as indicated.


References


Bibliography

* {{City of Stirling suburbs Suburbs of Perth, Western Australia Suburbs in the City of Stirling